David W. Jacobsen is a musician from New Jersey and has been releasing music since 2001. “POTUS” is Jacobsen’s latest project, a first-person concept album that is performed from the perspective of past U.S. presidents.

“It’s more emotive and expressive if you’re telling someone’s point of view rather than a third-person narrative,” Jacobsen said.

Jacobsen was a History minor at Berkeley University, and said that he’s always been interested in medieval European history, but never deeply studied U.S. history. However, over the last 6 years, he’s been consuming history podcasts and biographies, which eventually led to the album. 

Jacobsen cites his main inspiration for POTUS as folk-rock musician Al Stewart. Stewart has a variety of songs about history, which also inspired Jacobsen to create an entire historical album. 

POTUS was released in late October 2020, which Jacobsen said was just in time for the 2020 election. 

“I’m contemplating maybe doing one for 2024,” Jacobsen said. “There are a couple presidents I had in mind – Calvin Coolidge, Benjamin Harrison, you know.” 

For future projects, Jacobsen is currently working on an album called “Expecting Different Results,” based on the phrase, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” 

Jacobsen’s entire discography of eight albums can be found on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music. Learn more about Jacobsen and his music at davidwj.com. 

Jacob Latimer can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @jacoblatimer_.